Health IT
Healthcare organizations are rushing to implement information technologies for a variety of reasons including cost pressures and regulatory mandates. This drive to implement electronic medical record (EMR) systems and the increasing level of automation in terms of data collection and medical devices is truly stunning for anyone watching it happen. What is profoundly concerning to me is that this technology is being implemented at a breakneck pace and not all organizations are paying sufficient attention to processes.
Healthcare groups that I talk to are in varying stages of process maturity so grand sweeping statements are risky. I would, however, like to see these organizations ensure that there is a proper balance of people, process and technology in the services that they are implementing.
Visible Ops has helped bring order to countless organizations by emphasizing the need for change management as an underpinning control process. For business groups we emphasized the need to control costs and meet the needs of the organization by reducing unplanned work while improving availability and overall agility. For healthcare, there is a different and very interesting dynamic at play/
When a business system crashes, there are impacts but the results typically aren’t catastrophic. Maybe some orders are lost or people can’t make a new widget because a production line is down – things of that nature. In healthcare, if a system fails, the health of patients can be put at risk. What is markedly different in healthcare is IT’s evolution from being a passive order entry and accounting piece of the puzzle to being actively involved with a diverse range of activities including patient admittance, workflow, vital sign monitoring, diagnosis, and treatment. For example, evidenced based medicine promises to improve the decision making process. At the same time, prescription systems have made dramatic improvements in the reduction of adverse drug effects (ADEs).
In situations such as these confidentiality, integrity and availability are vital. Thus, to effectively manage risks to the production systems, the organization and their patients, change management is an essential process. Healthcare organizations should review if their levels of unplanned work, project backlogs, failed changes and availability are problematic. If so, then they definitely need to look at their processes and Visible Ops can help.